That was Garcia's advice to reporters last January in Maui,after he had won the Mercedes Championship with a four-roundscore of 274 and an aggregate of more than 4,000 fidgety,finicky, seemingly compulsive regrippings of his golf clubs. Forreasons that were clear to no one, least of all Garcia himself,the 22-year-old Spaniard had in June of last year adopted apreshot routine based on the principles of Chinese watertorture. A couple of conventional waggles, a swivel or two ofthe head to fix the target and then the regrips--four times,five times...eight, nine, 10 times...16, 17, 18...25, 26,27...31, 32 times....

There are two schools of thought regarding Garcia's preshotroutine. The first dismisses it as a harmless relaxation ritual,not unlike that of the basketball player who dribbles the balland spins it in his hands before attempting a free throw. Thesecond respectfully suggests that Garcia is a nutcase who isonly a few thousand regrips shy of being fitted for along-sleeved tunic with white straps and buckles.

The latter view was popular with the amateur psychologists wholined the fairways at last month's U.S. Open at Bethpage Black,where Garcia finished fourth behind fidget-free Tiger Woods,placid Phil Mickelson and stolid Jeff Maggert. Shouts of "Hitit, Waggle Boy!" were heard as Garcia dithered over the ball,and some spectators tried to get into his head by counting outloud as he regripped: "... Fourteen! Fifteen! Sixteen! ..." Atone point Garcia raised his right hand to thehecklers--indicating with a finger, according to some, that theyshould start again at one.

Half convinced ourselves that Garcia might be suffering fromsome sort of anxiety disorder--remember a few years ago, atWentworth, when he took off one of his shoes and hurled it downthe fairway?--we spoke with Denise Egan, who is the clinicalcoordinator for Massachusetts General Hospital'sObsessive-Compulsive Disorders Institute. Egan, while claimingno expertise in sports fidgeting, explained that a clinicalcompulsion is an irresistible impulse to do something over andover again, regardless of the rationality of the motive. Anobsession is a recurrent and persistent thought or image that isintrusive and inappropriate. "One common obsession is germs,"Egan said. "Some people worry that they'll die if they touchsomething."

The obsessed person, upset by the disturbing thought, performssome act or ritual to relieve the anxiety--washing his handsuntil they are raw, for instance, to kill germs. The compulsion,in other words, is driven by an obsession. "Lots of people havelittle obsessions and compulsions," Egan said, "but you don'thave obsessive-compulsive disorder unless the behaviorinterferes with your ability to function." Garcia's regrippingwould be a cause for concern, for example, if he couldn't hitthe ball within the 60 seconds allowed under PGA Tour rules.

That is not the case with Garcia. Since introducing hisregripping routine to less-than-rave reviews, he has won oneTour event and one tournament each in Europe and South Africa,finished in the top 10 in three major championships, tied forsecond at the Tour Championship, vaulted to fifth in the WorldRanking and started dating tennis star Martina Hingis. "Then I'dsay the regripping is functional for him," Egan said. "It mightbe bugging other people, but it seems as if it's serving him O.K."

Garcia's routine gets an even stronger endorsement from sportspsychologist and author Bob Rotella, who serves as mind-gamecoach to Davis Love III, Nick Price and other touring pros. "Dopeople not understand greatness?" Rotella asks. "Sergio's regripis very intuitive, instinctive. It keeps tension from gettinginto his body and maintains the softness in his hands and arms.He's a very visual player, and he's not going to hit the balluntil he sees the shot clearly in his head. That's his genius.It's like a pianist hearing the music in his head, and a momentlater the notes come out of his fingers."

To support his contention that the waggle is the solution, notthe problem, Rotella points out that Garcia leads the Tour intotal driving, a statistic combining distance and accuracy, andregrips more on the tee than on any other shot.

Garcia is not the first touring pro to raise eyebrows with apreshot routine. Hubert Green, who won a U.S. Open, a PGAChampionship and 17 other Tour events between 1971 and '85,bobbed his head and squirmed so much over the ball that LosAngeles Times columnist Jim Murray said he looked like a drunktrying to find a keyhole in the dark. Fred Daly, the Irish prowho won the British Open in 1947, was famous for placing andreplacing his putter dozens of times before striking the ball.Then there was Jack Nicklaus, who stood motionless over hisputts until ivy started growing up his legs. (After years ofbeing fined and criticized for slow play, Nicklaus picked up hispace.)

Another weird but effective preshot routine belonged to FrankBeard, the Tour's leading money winner in 1969. He soled theclub between his feet and the ball and then slowly worked itinto position behind the ball with a series of gentle taps. "Itwould be easy to describe it as a nervous habit," Beard says,"but I didn't feel nervous. It wasn't a tension breaker as muchas it was a rhythm starter." It wasn't a problem, either, untilpeople asked Beard to explain why he did it. "I had no answer. Icouldn't remember not doing it."

Beard knows one thing for certain: Garcia is not the firstworld-class player to compulsively regrip the club. When Beardplayed at Florida in the late 1950s, All-America golfer and lawstudent Dan Sikes regripped so often that some suspected he wasreviewing legal arguments in his head. "One day we counted,"Beard says, "and it was amazing. Dan regripped the club 19times, and it was 19 every time." When the players asked Sikesabout his gripping fetish, he said, "I know I do it, but I don'tknow how many times." Sikes went on to have a successful Tourcareer, but not until he reduced his regripping to one or twoquick squeezes.

Garcia would like to cut back too, but so far his efforts havefailed. In May, when he forced himself to hit the ball after acouple of waggles and only a few regrips, he played a stretch ofeight rounds in 22 over par, missed two cuts and finished 73rdat the Memorial. In June, with the waggle restored, he shot paror better in 10 of 12 rounds and finished 12th, fourth and 20th.At the Canadian Skins Game two weeks ago, however, he shortenedhis routine again, never exceeding six regrips--and he won witheight skins. "I've been playing so much I haven't had time towork on it," Garcia said. "I'm trying to shorten it up, yes, andI feel really comfortable with my setup now. It feels great."

His Canadian Skins opponents needled him gently--John Dalycounted Garcia's regrips in a stage whisper on the 1st tee--butfew Tour players openly condemn Garcia's preshot routine. "It'sa habit he doesn't like," says Vijay Singh, "but Sergio is agreat feel player, and he plays best when he feels comfortable."At the U.S. Open, during which Garcia played with Woods in thefinal pairing on Sunday, he looked the other way whenever Garciawas over the ball.

His critics predict that the regripping habit will eventuallyfray his nerves and damage his game. They point to an incidentlast December at the Nedbank Golf Challenge in Sun City, SouthAfrica, where Garcia, facing a shot over water, regripped morethan 50 times before backing off and muttering that he couldn't"hit the f---ing ball." They point to the heckling at Bethpage,which may have distracted Garcia enough to have prevented himfrom overtaking Woods. And they point to the pitiable CobieLegrange, the 1969 Dunlop British Masters champion whose careerended in the early '70s after he "got stuck" and simply couldnot take the club back from the ball.

"If I were Sergio's coach, I would be looking for some way tostop it," says Beard. "If it's not arrested, it can only getworse." Peter Allis, the English golf commentator, is of thesame mind. "I do worry about his gripping and regripping habit,"Allis told The Observer, of Manchester, England, in April."Whether it will ultimately shorten his career at the very toplevel, I'm not sure. Somebody might whack him first, because I'mafraid he can also be a bumptious little wotsit."

The folks who study psyches for a living say there is littledanger that the regripping alone will cause Garcia to lose hisgrip. The bigger worry is that media doubters and tournamenthecklers will get him thinking about his busy hands instead offocusing on the shot. That could seriously undermine his game."If his game tanks," says Mass General's Egan, "it will bebecause we've taken away something that helps him function."

Rotella goes even further, saying that the problem lies not withGarcia's waggle but with the golf world's penchant forconformity. "In basketball it's cool if you're unique anddifferent. In golf, for some reason, people hate it."

Hate is a strong word. Let's just say we're annoyed.

COLOR PHOTO: PHOTOGRAPH BY DONALD MIRALLE/GETTY IMAGES [INSIDE COVER] BRITISH OPEN CAN SERGIO STOP TIGER AT MUIRFIELD? (And Do Something About Those Annoying Waggles)TWO COLOR PHOTOS: PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHUCK SOLOMON FANNING THE FLAMES With his endless regrips and waggles, Garcia drew the ire of the vocal spectators at the U.S. Open. B/W PHOTO: AP (TOP) TIP-TAP SHAPE Beard soled the club between his feet and the ball and then slowly moved it into position with a series of taps.COLOR PHOTO: JACQUELINE DUVOISIN NODDING ACQUAINTANCE Green bobbed his head and squirmed over the ball, but he won a U.S. Open and a PGA championship.COLOR PHOTO: ERIC SCHWEIKARDT (TOP) STATUE-ESQUE Nicklaus was criticized--and fined--for standing over putts too long.B/W PHOTO: AP PSYCHED OUT Sikes only had success on the Tour after cutting down his regrips from 19 to one or two quick squeezes.

For reasons clear to no one, Garcia adopted a preshot routinebased on Chinese water torture.

Since introducing his regripping routine, Garcia has been in thetop 10 in three major championships.

Before he became the premier postseason performer of his generation, the Patriots icon was a middling college quarterback who invited skepticism, even scorn, from fans and his coaches. That was all—and that was everything